Join us as we speak with Ricardo Olivares about his 17-year journey at NASA where he has climbed the ranks through various engineering and management positions. In this episode, Ricardo talks about some of the many different groups he has worked for at NASA and their relative subcultures, what's it's like to load cargo into a SpaceX rocket, and some of the process that goes into performing research and development at the highest echelon.   

Additionally, Spencer - who worked briefly at SpaceX - and Ricardo speculate about what drives a person to want to work on the Space program and run through some of the steps they took to pursue a career in space exploration.   

On a more somber note, Ricardo explains the sequence of events leading up to the Space shuttle Columbia explosion and recalls what it was like to be in the room when it happened.  

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